Responsible investment

Responsible investment gets to the heart of our values – it is one of the key issues we identified as part of our Materiality review in 2010. We rigorously evaluate potential investment choices from environmental, ethical and corporate governance perspectives – considering performance in these different areas alongside financial performance. We believe that this approach helps to build consumer confidence, focusing investments on companies which demonstrate long-term sustainability over short-term and potentially risky gains.

When Ipsos MORI conducted research for Friends Life among corporate responsibility experts and leading non-governmental organisations, it corroborated our position. Both sets of stakeholders stress the need to offer sustainable investment solutions to customers and to influence the companies in which we invest to develop responsible and sustainable business models.

We are already a key player in the responsible investment market through our ‘Stewardship’ range of ethically screened funds. They are an important source of the confidence placed in us by our customers.